During the latter part of its history five comic poets competed each year at the City Dionysia, and each presented but a single play; there is some reason for believing that the number was five also at the beginning, but possibly there were then only three competitors. At any rate there were certainly not more than three for a while during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.).[296] When the comedies were restricted to three they were naturally performed one on each of the last three days, after that day’s tragedies and satyr-play, as we have just seen. But what the arrangement was when the larger number was presented is not so obvious. Was a second comedy crowded into the program on two of the days? Or were comedies produced also on the second and third days of the festival, after the dithyrambic choruses? The latter alternative would be my choice, and this would explain why in the inscriptional records the comedies preceded the tragedies, though in the chronological sequence of the last three days they followed them. When Aristophanes brought out his _Women in Council_ he was so unfortunate in the drawing of lots as to be forced to perform his play first in the series of comedies. Therefore he had his chorus say (vss. 1158 ff.): Let it nothing tell against me, that my play must first begin; See that, through the afterpieces, back to me your memory strays; Keep your oaths, and well and truly judge between the rival plays. Be not like the wanton women, never mindful of the past, Always for the new admirer, always fondest of the last. [Rogers’ translation] This close juxtaposition of tragedy and comedy at the same festival must have strengthened a practice which in any case would have been inevitable, viz., that the comic poets should parody lines, scenes, or even whole plots of their tragic confrères. In a community as small as Athens it was impossible that advance knowledge of a tragic plot or even the exact wording of striking lines should not sometimes reach the ears of a comic playwright and be turned to skilful account by him. Even when the secret had been guarded until the very moment of presentation, it must have been feasible for a comedian whose play was to be produced on a subsequent day of the festival to incorporate a few lines or a short scene in his comedy overnight. But this is mere theorizing, for I remember no passage where such “scoops” are mentioned. The parodying of tragedies brought out at previous festivals, however, was exceedingly common. The extant plays preserve some instances of this, and the scholiasts tell us of many others. Parodies of no less than thirty-three of Euripides’ tragedies are preserved in the remains of Aristophanes’ comedies. But the situation is too well known to merit further amplification here, cf. Murray, _op. cit._, _passim_.